The present invention relates to a ski for either snow or water skiing and more particularly to a platform for attaching to a ski to provide a monoski for snow or water skiing.
The term "monoski" refers to that type of ski in which the skier stands on a single ski, skid or runner member.
The usual difficulties which are to be dealt with using conventional skis comprise the maintenance of an ideal boy position which will vary according to speed and running situation, the displacement of body weight from one ski to the other and the command of the ski edges connected with such body displacement, the guidance of the skis, particularly their maintenance in parallel position, and finally the adoption of the position of the skis and of the position of the body to the ground and the track to be followed.
These difficulties usually are gradually overcome by the skier with increasing ability, but a greater amount of strength and concentration is needed which diminishes the pleasure of skiing and results in a retardation of the excursion on the skis. When the skis are not maintained in an exact parallelism, one of the other ski not only moves in a longitudinal direction but will also skid laterally which will slow down the running speed.
When skiing over undulated ground, particularly when crossing the undulations at an angle other than right angles, a considerable expenditure of force is required to keep the skis parallel to each other.
A monoski overcomes these disadvantages and will enable a novice to obtain greater pleasure from skiing.
Known monoskis have either a single platform or two spaced platforms supported in an elevated position above the ski by two columns. When using a single platform both feet of the skier are retained in identical feet retaining mean. When using two platforms the toes of both feet are retained on one platform and the heels of both feet are retained on the second platform. In each of the single platform or dual platform arrangement the width of the platforms are wider than the width of the ski.
In another prior art monoski arrangement the ski itself is made wide enough to have retained on the upper surface thereof two identical feet retainer mean to hold the feet of the skier in a side-by-side relationship on the ski without any overhang of the feet retaining means.